crazy, in fact it wasn’t even a plan. Surrender? And then what? Of course he would kill them all. That was his intention. What was she thinking, that she could talk him out of it? Should she make an emergency call to the Coast Guard? He’d hear it and kill her father if she did that. And even if he didn’t, the Coast Guard would never go out in this weather.
She had to think of something.
And then, over channel 72, a voice grated out: “Daddy’s awake. Want to say hello?”
80
The agents escorted Ford into the conference room. As soon as he came in, Lockwood leapt up from his position at the head of a large conference table, ringed by suits and uniforms, surrounded by flat-panel screens. By the dark and serious looks on their faces he knew they must be at least partially aware of what was going on.
“Good God, Wyman, we’ve been trying to reach you for hours! We’ve got an extraordinary situation on our hands. The president needs a recommendation by seven.”
“I have some information for you of critical value,” Ford said, laying the briefcase on the table and gazing around, assessing his audience. Lockwood was flanked by Gen. Mickelson, his grizzled hair roughly combed, his casual uniform rumpled, the athletic frame uncharacteristically tense. A contingency of NPF people occupied one side of the table, among which he recognized Chaudry and Derkweiler, along with an Asian woman with a badge that said Leung. A smattering of OSTP scientists and national security officials sat at the far end; conferenced in on flat-panel screens were the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the national security advisor Manfred, the head of NASA, and the director of national intelligence. The long cherry-wood table was littered with legal pads, paper, and laptops. Various secretaries and assistants sat in chairs along the walls, taking notes. The atmosphere was one of tension, verging on desperation.
Ford opened his briefcase and took out the fake hard drive, setting it down gently on the table like it was a piece of Baccarat crystal. Then he took out the large print of Voltaire33, the clearest one of the batch which he had blown up at Kinko’s, and unrolled it. “This, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “This is an image taken by the Mars Mapping Orbiter back on March twenty-third.”
He let a beat pass and he showed it around. “It depicts an object on the surface of Mars. I believe this object fired on the Earth in April, and fired at the Moon tonight.”
Another moment of shocked stasis, and then the table erupted with talk, questions, expostulations. Ford waited for the hubbub to die down and said, “The image came from that classified hard drive there.”
“Where on Mars is it?” the woman named Leung spoke up.
“It’s all on the drive,” said Ford. “Everything.” He added, lying, “I don’t know the exact coordinates offhand.”
“Impossible!” cried Derkweiler. “We would have seen that in our general reviews long ago!”
“You didn’t see it before because it was hidden in the shadow of a crater, almost invisible. The image here required enormous processing time and skill to tease it out of the darkness.”
Chaudry rose from the table and, giving Ford a suspicious glance, reached out and picked up the drive. He turned it over in his mahogany hands, his black eyes examining it intensely, his California ponytail out of place among the suited Washington crowd.
“This isn’t an NPF drive.” He looked at Ford, his eyes narrowing. “Where’d you get this drive?”
“From the late Mark Corso,” said Ford.
Chaudry paled slightly. “No one can copy or remove a drive like this from NPF. Our data encryption and security procedures are fail-safe.”
“Is anything really impossible to a skillful computer technician? If you doubt it, check the serial number on the side.”
Chaudry examined it further. “It does seem to be an NPF serial number. But this . . . this image of yours. I’d like to see the original. This could be Photoshopped for all we know.”
“Proof of it is right there on the drive, in the original binary data from the MRO.” Ford removed a piece of paper from his suit pocket and held it up to the group. “Problem is, the NPF password on this drive has been changed. I have the new password to unlock it—without which the drive is useless.” He gave the paper a little shake. “Trust me, it’s real.”
The woman named Marjory Leung had risen from her seat. “Excuse me, did you say the